Have you often thought when you find out a co-worker is working on a graduate degree, “That’s not for me — I don’t have the time or the money and besides I enjoy what I am doing now”? I did not seek a graduate degree until my children were in high school and after beginning; I wish I had started on that journey earlier! Let’s address some of the myths.

• I do not have time in my life right now.
  I delayed a pursuing graduate degree because I thought I would be on campus as much as undergraduate classes require. Many graduate nursing programs offer online and on campus options or a combination. I often advise nurses, just stick your toe in the water and try one class. You can fit the assignments in your life no matter what shift you are currently working. Just trying one class a semester is “doable”

• I am not sure I can afford the tuition
  There are many options-private and public colleges. There are scholarships and some employers offer tuition reimbursement. It is an employee benefit-check it out!

• I have not been in school in years. I am not sure I am smart enough for graduate school.
  I hear this one a lot. You are smart-you are a RN and passed boards! Hands down for most nurses, our first program is the most difficult whether it was a BSN, diploma or AD program. You will be pleasantly surprised that a graduate degree builds on your existing knowledge and you will be encouraged to focus on your specialty area for assignments. You will often be able to combine an assignment with a project you wanted to do at work anyway. Plus for all of us “seasoned” nurses, when we have to use an example from practice, we have years of case studies and examples to use in assignments.

• I really enjoy being at the bedside, I don’t want to do anything different right now
  Great! We need advanced degree nurses using their expertise and practicing evidence based practice in every setting. A graduate degree will open doors that you may not even think about right now. There may be an amazing opportunity that will come your way that requires an advanced degree.

• I am not sure I can keep up with the technology now-discussion boards and on line classes.
  I was not confident either, however if you have middle or high school age children or neighbors, they will enjoy helping you. You will quickly adjust just as you have to EMRs.

I share all these myths because this is what I heard as I was working on my MSN and then a PhD. I began my MSN part time at the age of 50 when I was working about 24 hours a week and had all three children still at home. I did not intend to pursue a doctorate degree, however I became fascinated at the opportunity to influence care through research.

I started on my PhD one year after completing my MSN. I worked full-time during my PhD journey and I completed it within 4 ½ years. To add to the craziness, all three of my children got married during this time. It has now been a year since I graduated and I am an assistant professor at a university. I am able to continue to work occasionally in a clinical setting, conduct research, and teach the next generation of maternal child nurses.  I never would have dreamed that this would be my journey when I began taking that first graduate course. Therefore, if you are considering giving it a try, jump in, the water really is great. There are many others ready to encourage you along the way.

Janet Tucker is an assistant professor at the University of Memphis Loewenberg College of Nursing, where she is currently teaching maternal child nursing. She completed her MSN in 2010 and PhD in 2017. Her research interests are expectant women experiencing a fetal anomaly diagnosis.

AWHONN Resources

With generous support from individual and corporate donors, AWHONN’s Every Woman, Every Baby charitable giving program provides the opportunities to AWHONN members to apply for research grants and project grants who work in continue to improve the health of mothers, babies and their families. Additionally, AWHONN’s commitment to support emerging leaders also provides opportunities to apply to academic scholarships and enhance their professional development through attending AWHONN’s Annual Convention and information of education resources. , For more information on AWHONN scholarships and professional development opportunities visit http://www.awhonn.org/page/awards

It has been an amazing eleven year journey working as a neonatal nurse. The journey has taken me across the United States and beyond. Being a nurse has enriched and changed my life in so many ways. For that I am eternally grateful.

I still recall my first job. I felt like an impostor in my uniform.

I didn’t feel like a nurse because in my mind a nurse was someone who could start an IV blindfolded, resuscitate a patient while sleeping, and recognize all the signs and symptoms of septic shock at the drop of a hat.

Little did I know that there is no perfect nurse. There are nurses who are born skilled, those who are walking encyclopedias, and those who have the kindest hearts.

Combine all this and it’s almost like catching a glimpse of big foot, the tooth fairy, or even a leprechaun. With this in mind, the following are just a few recommendations for new nurses in the NICU…

Find your mentor
A mentor is a nurse that takes you under their wing and guides you. It may not be the mentor you were assigned to on your new unit, but you will find him/her. It often happens naturally. You find that nurse that loves to teach and your personalities just click. They are part teacher, part life coach, part parent or sibling, and eventually friend. They are the nurses you aspire to be. I have a trail of them across the globe.

Lori and her mentor Mary

You will be tested
The doctors will test you, the nurses will test you, the respiratory therapists will test you, and the parents will test you. It’s ok. It is normal. You have to prove that you have some clue, which you do! Trust me, you do! And with that, always trust your instincts.

Take care of yourself on your days off
Use your days off to enjoy your life outside of work. You work in intensive care. You need to find some outlet that has nothing to do with your job. Meet up with your friends, get a massage, run if you run, yoga if you yoga.

Handle with care
Our tiny patients are so delicate. No matter how stressed or rushed you are, handle them gently. Handle the parents gently. They are in shock and grieving. They need you.

Wash Your Hands
Hand washing still is the single most important thing you can do for your patients. Patients are still contracting and succumbing to hospital-acquired infections even in our most technologically advanced units. Our tiny patients have little to no immune defense.

Don’t Forget
When new nurses come through the door after you’ve worked a year or two, remember that you were there not long ago. Welcome them, mentor them, don’t talk about them when they leave the room. Be the positive example in your unit.

Welcome to the nursing profession! Best wishes on this exciting journey!

Lori is a NICU Staff Nurse  at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. After becoming a nurse, Lori traveled across the country to work a three-month travel contract in San Francisco, California.  Nearly five years later her journey continued to Gothenburg, Sweden, where she now lives and works.

How can I become a leader in the nursing profession?

As the president of the Board of Directors at AWHONN, I am often asked about leadership in nursing – how can we encourage young nurses to be leaders, what skills do they need, what is holding them back?

What I have learned over my 27 years of nursing is that becoming a leader requires thinking of nursing as not just a set of clinical skills, but also as the business of nursing and training yourself for that.

My leadership journey started when a colleague tapped me on the shoulder in grad school and told me to join AHWONN. I joined, but I didn’t just become a member, I took every opportunity I could to challenge myself and learn new skills. From volunteering at section conferences, managing my chapter/section budget, to eventually doing executive-level consulting work, everything I did and learned was applicable to my future career success. I also looked at my career as a hobby and learned what I loved – don’t forget that leadership without passion for what you do is not successful or rewarding.

To become a leader, you will need to take on different skill sets that interest you and could be applicable down the road. When I applied to my first executive-level job, I was able to point to the finance experience I had with managing my chapter/section budget. It was finance on a different scale, but by leaning on these same core skills I picked up as a leader, I landed the position. Through the work I did as a fetal monitoring instructor, I was able to show how I could train and educate nurses at higher levels than myself. It also helped introduce me to a circle of networking throughout Southeast Michigan. Also, speaking on the Hill about public policy that you are passionate about will give you a voice, a strong voice, which will carry you forward.

Always look for challenges! AWHONN is a great place to start – apply to become an AWHONN Emerging Leader, speak out on the Hill, and even grow your writing skills by writing for this blog – AWHONN Connections. It is an empowering organization that provides you the opportunity and tools to grow as a person and as a nurse.

You can do anything you want to do – become a teacher, an executive, a clinical nurse specialist. Find where you fit and what you are passionate about, train for all the skills you need and succeed!

Karen Harris is the President of AWHONN and Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer, Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital.

Bree and Lisa Miller!

When I was a baby nurse at the beginning of my career, we ran high dose oxytocin at my institution. On occasion a patient would not reach an adequate contraction pattern despite the high titration of the medication. Nurses would say, the patient’s oxytocin receptors were saturated, turn the medication off, and let them rest.

Since arriving at Convention, the steady stream of information has completely saturated my brain.

This morning, as Convention winds down, I sip my coffee and reflect on the last couple of days. I love to-do lists so to organize my over saturated mind I made a list of thoughts.

1. Evidence. Read it, challenge the way we’ve always done it, and evolve practice to reflect the evidence.
2. I would venture to say if there was a Lisa Miller fan club, I would be in it. As I waited for a session to begin yesterday, Lisa Miller took the seat in front of me. I looked around amazed that I was afforded the opportunity to visit with her again. I basically confessed my love for her and asked for a selfie. She laughed and was so genuinely kind.
3. I will aspire to get published. Although I probably will not be submitting a manuscript this summer, within the next two years is a reasonable goal.
4. I want to submit an abstract for a poster next year. Walking through and examining all of the posters reassured me of the many initiatives we have embraced, and gave me some great ideas on new initiatives to implement at Shawnee Mission back in Kansas City. Perhaps next year I may be able to share my own ideas with others!
5. I need to go back to school. All week the thought just has not left my mind. Education is a vehicle to transform your own development.  I have SO much more to learn and I am excited to start that journey, I am just not sure where to begin. I have wrestled with whether I should get my Masters in Education or if I should work toward my CNS. Maybe I should go to midwifery school to learn as much about obstetrics as possible?

Leaving the hotel last night to meet a colleague for dinner, I noticed Kathleen Rice Simpson waiting in the lobby.  I walked over and thanked her for a really amazing session on Safe Cesarean Birth. As I began to converse with the goddess of obstetrics about the day and different opportunities for my own unit, she offered some insight, offering a tour of her unit if we wanted to gain some ideas from their triage model.  While we visited, I told Mrs. Simpson I aspire to go back to school. I don’t want to return to school just to earn new letters behind my name, I want to truly learn and grow. Kathleen Rice Simpson then gave me her email and told me to get in touch with her if I wanted to further discuss going back to school, what would be right for me. It was as if the clouds parted and the sky opened up and cherubs began to sing.

I can’t make this stuff up, are you kidding? How amazing. What a day!

Bree Fallon is a Clinical Educator for Perinatal Services at Shawnee Mission Medical Center, the busiest delivering hospital in Kansas City. She graduated from nursing school in 2004 and started her career in a tertiary care facility, providing high risk intrapartum and antepartum care. In 2010, she moved to Children’s Mercy in Kansas City who was looking for experienced L&D nurses to help open the their new Fetal Health Center.

Stay connected during Convention by following AWHONN on Twitter.

Bernadette Melnyk, PhD, RN, CPNP/PMHNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN

by, Bree Fallon, BSN, RNC-OB, C-EFM,

Perhaps I can attribute it to the time change, but I was awake before 6:00 am this morning once again.

The day is here, get up and get excited!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from “Transforming Healthcare Quality and Safety with Evidence-Based Practice and ARCC,” at the General Session, but a peer back in Kansas City told me Bernadette Melnyk was a “not to miss” speaker so I make sure to sit up front.

Dodi Gauthier came onto the stage first recounting a beautiful personal story of a woman she cared for and whose life she made a difference in, with a call to contribute to AWHONN. It was easy recall many of the women I felt truly blessed to have cared for over the years. By continuing to support AWHONN I know that I too am truly promoting the health of mothers and newborns.

As Bernadette began to speak, her passion for evidence based practice unfolded rapidly. My heart broke as she recounted the loss of her mother and the near loss of her daughter. It absolutely drove the message home to advocate for evidence based practice care in our own facilities and units. To translate evidence based practice to our bedsides, we need to make it part of the culture in our hospitals. When I return to Kansas City, I want to ensure that we reiterate the importance and value our organization places on evidence based practice into our Nurse Residency Program and general nursing orientation. We have to all work together to make change happen, let’s go do it!

Throughout the day, I just kept shaking my head in disbelief. I have not been here for even 48 hours and have been captivated by a dozen of the most impressive and credible nurses in the field of obstetrics.

In the back of my mind, as I listened and took it in, I thought to myself, what can I, myself, do to capture these nurses’ message and impart it on to my own colleagues back home?

Lisa Miller’s talk on “Cases for Concern: Liability in the Intrapartum Setting” was brilliant and she was so sincere and approachable when we spoke after the session. She offered such thoughtful and gentle insight, all the while being extremely entertaining and engaging. I offered to be a groupie. 

I have to admit as I walked into “Obstetric Triage: State of Science”, I was star struck as I realized Cathy Ruhl, aka know as Gayle from the Intermediate AWHONN Communication DVD, would be speaking!

Cathy and Elizabeth Howard addressed the issue many of L&D units had around the country with collaborating to develop an OB triage tool. I know my manager and I are so excited for the triage tool to be released this fall!

I spent the afternoon with a most impressive panel of editors in “Write it Right: Editors Share the Insider’s Track to Getting Published”. Five years ago, I was reviewing the clinical ladder criteria at my facility for the different rungs of clinical advancement. I noticed I could consider submitting a piece of work to a professional journal to obtain a higher clinical status. At the time, I rolled my eyes, discredited myself of the possibility of completing such a task, and stuck with my current incentive. After listening to each woman on the panel’s words of wisdom and encouragement, I know and truly believe that submitting work for publication is completely possible!

Monday always ends with the President’s Party. It was a hoot! I met even more friends from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New York and even our neighbors in St Louis.

I have so enjoyed meeting everyone from everywhere. It is like a fraternity where everyone shares the same passion and strange sense of nurse humor. After lots of great conversations and laughs and one spectacular rendition of “Going to Kansas City” with my Kansas City crew, we called it a night.

How can it possibly be this magic begun just yesterday? Along with setting several lofty but attainable goals, I feel as though I have learned and gained so incredibly much.
What will tomorrow bring!?

Bree Fallon is a Clinical Educator for Perinatal Services at Shawnee Mission Medical Center, the busiest delivering hospital in Kansas City. She graduated from nursing school in 2004 and started her career in a tertiary care facility, providing high risk intrapartum and antepartum care. In 2010, she moved to Children’s Mercy in Kansas City who was looking for experienced L&D nurses to help open the their new Fetal Health Center.

As we near the end of this week, which celebrates nurses and also encompasses the day we celebrate moms, I want to recognize the impact you make on lives each and every day.

The work nurses do around the world, and the difference you make for women and newborns, is unmatched.   That is why we started this blog at AWHONN to tell your stories, your successes, your challenges, your joys and your heartbreaks.

Nursing is changing and evolving because of people like you—people who aim to provide nonjudgmental, evidenced-based care in settings that are busier than ever, with patients who have increasing health and economic challenges.

Every day we learn more about early stresses that influence newborn brain development in the NICU, newborn screening regulation, and the benefits of skin-to-skin at birth.  You continue to innovate and be flexible with each new discovery.

I am proud to represent each and every one of you and to celebrate you, your commitment to women and newborns, and your leadership in this rewarding but very tough profession of nursing.

THANK YOU for all that you do this week and every day,

Lynn Erdman, MN, RN, FAAN

CEO, AWHONN

PS. If you want have your story considered for the blog we’d love to hear from you. Make sure to fill out our Blogger Submission Form and we’ll be in touch.

Lynn Erdman is the CEO of AWHONN with more than 30 years of experience in the healthcare and nonprofit sectors. She is a highly skilled national leader in the field of nursing and previously held key national leadership positions with three global health organizations: the American Cancer Society, the American College of Surgeons, and the Susan G. Komen Global Headquarters.

Karen Harris and her son Andrew

by, Karen T. Harris, MSN, RN, WHNP-BC

I always knew that I wanted to be a nurse. From telling my mom that at the age of four to becoming the Vice President Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer, Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital after nursing for 27 years, my passion for nursing and patient care has never diminished.

No one in my immediate family of eight children is in nursing, so when I had my own children I had no expectation that they would hold the same passion that I did. However, looking back I can see what might have led my son Andrew into the health care world.

I was a pretty stern rules-based mom, and my children and I were immersed in each other’s lives. I remember one time my son Andrew was having a procedure done at my hospital and he tagged along to one of my breastfeeding meetings. It seemed like a normal working mom thing to do.

When my children’s friends came over to our house and didn’t want to wear gloves out in the freezing cold, I’d share journal articles on frostbite, or when they wanted to get a tattoo I’d pull out something on all the problems that can arise.

It was common over dinner to have frank conversations about what had happened at work that day, and we always answered questions openly and honestly.

When Andrew was admitted to Oakland University for nursing, it was as much fun for me as it was for him. We studied medication cards together and it was a great refresher for me since I was not on the front line of clinical nursing any longer. I learned a lot about new drugs on the market and different ways of doing things. I got to enjoy this again when he took his boards and we continued to learn together.

Andrew has been an orthopedics nurse for two years now, and we still have great conversation and learn from each other almost daily.

One of the things I learned has changed the way I approach new nurses. Seeing first-hand the challenges Andrew has faced with experienced nurses who may not be open to new perspectives has made me even more aware of the antagonistic environment they can experience. Now as I hire new nurses, I look to see how I can create a welcoming environment that includes incorporating their fresh perspectives and trust them to provide creative decision making with rationale.

Support the profession of nursing so that it can be strong.

So many nurses can become disheartened or disengaged with the profession, and it is up to us – nurses and parents – to encourage our new nurses and our children to find their niche which they can share their passion and find their joy the way Andrew and I have found ours.

Karen Harris is the President of AWHONN and Vice President of Patient Care Services and Chief Nursing Officer, Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital.

There are 4 million babies delivered in the U.S. each year*, 99% in hospitals with support of their nurse or midwife.

See our slideshow of how nursing has changed over the decades.

*U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Aleta Embrey is the recently retired Manager of the AWHONN Library and Archives. She looks forward to more time to travel , visit family (including her great grandson), and tackle her reading pile.